France nuclear submarine australia8/28/2023 Domestic opponents, however, might accuse Albanese of flip-flopping on AUKUS or undermining defence-in-depth. Although conventional submarines cannot stealthily cruise to the South China sea, the Prime Minister could cite that as a feature not a bug, since it would avoid gratuitously antagonising a nuclear-armed superpower. Conventional submarines not only can be quieter but are less expensive, so Australia could buy more of them, thereby enhancing coastal defence. More countries will follow.įirst, after conducting a formal review, his government could determine that conventional rather than nuclear submarines would better protect Australia’s national security. Australia would be the first country without nuclear weapons to acquire nuclear submarines, but Iran already has cited AUKUS as justification for its own production of HEU ostensibly for naval purposes. US and UK submarines use uranium fuel enriched to 93 percent, identical to that in their nuclear weapons. As the UN’s watchdog agency explained last year, Australia would be “taking material away from inspectors for some time – and we are talking about highly, very highly enriched uranium.” The agency cannot say so publicly, but this means it could not detect diversion quickly enough to prevent proliferation. However, Albanese also knows that buying submarines fuelled with tonnes of highly enriched uranium (HEU) – enough for hundreds of nuclear weapons – would wreck the non-proliferation regime that his party has long supported. Having received only a single day’s notice, and wanting to avoid looking weak on China with an election looming, Albanese felt compelled last September to endorse his predecessor’s AUKUS deal to acquire an expected eight nuclear-powered attack submarines, assisted by the United States and United Kingdom. Recently-elected Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese faces a dilemma on nuclear submarines.
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